Cab driver arrested from Mathura
8 Dec 2014 12:09 AM GMT
He was absconding since the victim registered a case against him at Sarai Rohilla police station. Yadav was employed with Uber cab services and was using Swift Dzire vehicle (DL 1YB 7910) to provide taxi services.
“Yadav was hiding there since he escaped from Delhi,” said Deepak Mishra, Special commissioner of police (Law and Order). The police team, along with the accused, reached Delhi by late Sunday night, he added. On Friday night, the victim hired Uber cab services from Vasant Vihar using an application on her mobile phone.The girl sat on the rear seat and instructed the driver to drop him at her residence in Inderlok in north Delhi. Midway, the girl allegedly fell asleep and after few hours when she woke up she realised the driver was molesting her.
According to the police, finding the girl asleep, Yadav parked the car at an isolated place and assaulted her. When she opposed the act, he slapped and punched her. While assaulting her, he threatened to victimise her in a similar way as Nirbhaya was assaulted, with iron rods. After raping her, he again threatened her to kill if she reported the matter to the police. When the victim agreed to not disclose the matter to anyone, he dropped her at her residence and escaped.
The victim then approached the police station and filed a complaint against the driver. According to the victim’s statement, after finishing her office she went to attend a friend’s party at a pub in Gurgaon. At around 9 pm she left the pub and headed towards a friend’s place in Vasant Vihar. Another friend dropped her till Vasant Vihar and meanwhile she booked the cab. The incident took place between 11 pm and 12.45 am.
According to a police official, “We have identified the crime spot in Tri Nagar where Yadav parked the car to assault the victim. A team has been rushed to the spot to collect necessary evidences.” Further investigation is underway.
Shockingly, the new taxis running in Delhi-NCR that enjoy lucrative tie-ups with foreign based cab services do not have ‘standalone’ GPS system fitted in the vehicles generally owned by the drivers themselves.
The drivers use the company’s smart phones (usually an older version of iPhone) to detect the customer’s location via GPS. Since mid-November, Uber has started promotional schemes to lure new customers by providing first free rides in Delhi-NCR. “For all new Uber users, the code ‘FunkyTown’ will get you 2 FREE rides upto Rs 300 each to and from the party,” one of the promotional scheme says.
Speaking to Millennium Post, a former driver of Uber explained the functioning of the cabs and the applications pre-installed on their official mobile phones.
“The moment we sign a contract with the company they give us an iPhone. The mobile has pre-installed applications including GPS, company’s application, navigator and other apps. Company’s server detects our location via GPS. Thereby, we receive notifications about customers who are willing to hire our cab services,” the driver, requesting anonymity, said.
Most of the time, the driver owns the cab so to earn handsome money from this profession he associates himself with three-four foreign-based cab services. “All the companies give us mobile phones and remain unaware about existing tie-ups we have with other companies as well. To avoid conflicts and continue our services with three-four different companies, we do not have a standalone GPS system fitted in our cabs,” another driver said. He is associated with Uber, Ola, Meru and Taxi-for-sure and operates in Delhi-NCR.
The pre-installed company’s app in iPhones (given to the drivers) is slightly different from the version used by customers. The latter uses the app to book the cab by sending his/her location which is then sent to the company’s server. According to the availability of the nearest cab, the request is flashed on the driver’s mobile and he gets 10 seconds to decide if a passenger is at a place that’s worth picking up.
“If we have picked up one customer via a particular company, we switch off other mobile phones to avoid exposing our location to other companies via GPS,” he added.
Millennium Post tried to contact Uber and other foreign-based companies providing cab services but they remained unavailable for comments.
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